For absolute sheer beauty you cannot go past http://tartelette.blogspot.com/. Don't worry about trying to do the same as she does, especially if you are learning. Just enjoy the food pron. Then start to follow links she has- but try to only do a couple at a time. You are right in that it can get overwhelming out there!

I love recipezaar.com. It has the most amazing cooks on there. I like the way the site lets you create your own cookbook, so if you see something you like, you can pull it into your cookbook. I also like the Kraft foods site and the Betty Crocker site. Of course, these sites build recipes around thier products, but I don't always like to cook from scratch so these are good for me. Pillsbury has some great recipes based on thier bread products. I like the things you can do with a little bit of dough and some meat.

Epicurious (www.epicurious.com). It has old Gourmet & Bon Appetit magazine recipes & people rate them so I can see if something is worth trying. Like there is a peach cheesecake recipe to die for on there. And I have used a great pizza crust recipe on there repeatedly. One of the reviewers gave a great suggestion to freeze the dough before the 2nd rise & thaw in the fridge during the day for dinner. I do that now so we can have fresh pizza dough during the week. There are also cocktail recipes on there.

I also like Cooking Light. Rarely has something not turned out from that site & it's a little healthier. There is a yummy antipasto bowl recipe on there and, well, a bunch of recipes I guess I could list.